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Catalan Institute of Palaeontology Miquel Crusafont

Managing the collections so that the fossils are controlled and preserved in good conditions

View of the collection storeroom, from the window accessible to the public

The objective of preserving and managing the collections is to control, preserve and extend the life of the fossil so that future generations can enjoy and learn from them. The palaeontological collection at ICP contains about 200,000 pieces and continues to grow thanks to ongoing palaeontological interventions carried out by the ICP. The fossils in the collection date from 240 million to 10,000 years ago.

The management of this heritage entails the storage, documentation and preventive preservation, as well as coordination, for its use as study material in scientific research, and also its dissemination. To keep track of the collection, it is important to give all the material a code and describe it in detail in the catalogue. Each fossil is assigned a registration number (equivalent to our own ID) that allows all the information on that piece to be retrieved, from the very day it entered the centre's storeroom. This number has two parts: an acronym (IPS, corresponding to the Sabadell Institute of Palaeontology) and a simple serial number, for example, IPS-54970.